On this date last year, the Diamondbacks inked Mark Reynolds to a three-year contract worth $14.5MM, buying out his first three years of arbitration-eligibility plus a club option for his fourth (Reynolds qualified as a Super Two). The 27-year-old hit .260/.349/.543 with 44 homers in 2009 but slumped down to .198/.320/.433 with 28 homers last season. He also struck out 200+ times for the third straight year. New GM Kevin Towers traded Reynolds to the Orioles for a pair of relievers in December, just nine months into his new deal.
These links are the best the blogosphere had to offer over the last seven days, so enjoy…
- Bless You Boys interviewed Tigers' radio announcer Dan Dickerson (part one, part two).
- Beyond The Box Score ranks the 30 best now-defunct MLB logos.
- MotionData created an interactive chart showing MLB team payrolls from 1991 through 2010.
- Baseball Time In Arlington muses about Chuck Greenberg's departure from the Rangers.
- Sports Perspective also checks in on Greenberg's departure.
- Bay City Ball comes up with some comparisons for Pablo Sandoval.
- Paapfly, meanwhile, isn't certain that a lighter Sandoval equals a better Sandoval.
- Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness wants to know how many problems Tony Gwynn Jr. can solve.
- U.S.S. Mariner says that Michael Pineda isn't ready for the big leagues.
- Royals Review wonders if Mike Aviles will ever earn $1MM in a season.
- Camden Crazies looks at the Orioles' lineup with platoon splits.
- The Shea Faithful asks if the Mets should be worried about Jason Bay.
- Blue Jays Rant speculates about whether or not the Blue Jays will exercise Aaron Hill's options after 2011.
- Twins Territory Talk muses about a Kevin Slowey for Joba Chamberlain trade.
- MiLB News provides an update on some top prospects fighting for jobs this spring.
- Wahoo Blues came up with a better way to measure a player's power.
- Dock of the Rays applies Sean Rodriguez's minor league platoon splits to his 2011 projections.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Mike can be reached here. Only one email per week, please.
It was great looking back on all the awesome baseball logos of the past, thanks for that. On a more speculative note, the Joba for Slowey trade proposal is an interesting idea. I think the Yankees would think that Joba is worth more but, at the same time, I don’t think any other team looks at Joba and sees the value he had a few years ago.
Find it quite humorous that some Twins writer thinks Kevin Slowey is worth Chamberlain, a down the line replacement for Mariano Rivera in a couple of years. This is the #4-5 Kevin Slowey on a team like the Yankees would normally like to have in the rotation, or not at all.
Power setup guy like Chamberlain, who might be able to get his FB back up to 98mph or so this year like it was back in 2008 if the Yankees will leave him in the BP is worth far more than a down the line kevin Millwood/Paul Byrd innings eater starter like Slowey, though as Red Sox fan this move would be liked greatly.
I feel like you are overvaluing Chamberlain. He’s not the same pitcher he used to be. Slowey has been more valuable recently in terms of WAR, and I would argue that a starter is more valuable than a reliever, but to each his own. It seems the Yanks and Twins are each more fond of their own guy in this situation, and I highly doubt this trade will happen.
While I personally wouldn’t trade Chamberlain for Slowey for the simple fact that I think Joba can produce similar stats as a starter I don’t agree with any of your reasoning.. .
No thank you for Kevin Slowey.
No thank you for Joba.
Good now we are both content
To say that Joba doesn’t have a second pitch just shows your ignorance. He threw his slider 28.2% of the time last year and batters swung and missed at it 16.4% of the time, basically double the league average. He didn’t strike out 9.67 batters per nine with just a fastball.
Haha, 2.8 walks per nine? Too bad the league average is 3.28 per nine, so thanks for making my point.
ERA is a stupid way to evaluate pitchers, especially relievers. Joba had some bad BABIP (.327) and horrific strand rate (66.6%) luck last year, and if those regress the league average (~.300 and ~72%, respectively), he’s a 3.00 ERA guy. He’s had a sub-3.00 FIP in two of the last three years, the one exception being his year as a starter.
To sit there and say “you can pretend that his slider has been effective if you want to, but the results show that it just isn’t” when I’m the one that provided the evidence showing that hitters are in fact having a tough time with it is pretty funny.
FINISH HIM
His slider is a show pitch IMO and when his FB dropped to even 95mph it became far more hittable cause it isn’t very good, much less the changeup and when his FB was sitting in the 91-3 range both were very hittable.
Both Chamberlain and Danial Bard had those 2 things in common.. A very devastating FB and a seriously lousy second pitch, but when that “#1” comes in at 98-99mph, one can get away with a curve/slider that floats over the plate far more often and until the last 1/3 of 2010, Chamberlain had lost that advantage for all of 2009 and the 1st 2/3 of 2010. he needs to get that heater back up to the upper 90’s to make batters wary of it much more so and not able to look for both pitches and just forget about that changeup, cause it isn’t much anyway is my 2c, just like that failed experiment with him as a starter that nearly ruined him.
This is not meant as a negative on Chamberlain either, not as a pitcher at least since like watching him go out there and pound the gas (when he can/could) then freeze hitters with that floater slider, just like Bard does now.
One could argue that his BABIP numbers were not the result of bad luck, but the result of piping fastballs in predictable counts. Stats are very useful but sometimes can’t explain what some video can… His walk rates weren’t indicative of his lack of command. Throwing good strikes is different from simply not walking people and serving up predictable pitches.
This whole argument is pretty stupid on both ends:
1) slowey and chamberlain are not comparable players in any real baseball conversation.
2) Besides Montero at backstop, I don’t see how you can say the Yankees are developing the “heir apparent” to anyone at any position, especially after signing Raphael Soriano for so much money. This comment is just straight up wrong. Now if Joba becomes the closer in a few years, he becomes the closer, but they haven’t anointed him the closer of the future by any indication.
3) Chamberlain has a lot of talent, but is coming off of two subpar, albeit not terrible for the Al East seasons. Lets wait and see what he does, but no, he won’t be in trade talks for Kevin Slowey anytime soon.